I've Trained Them Well

Imagine having an infant who nursed every 3 hours on the clock, a 3 year old who just wanted to check on you while you were sleeping and a 6 year old who was going through the "I had a bad dream" phase.  I was one tired mama.  Before all of this, I had spent countless days and nights in the hospital from preterm labor and was constantly being woken up from beeping monitors, nurses checking my blood pressure, medicine times, false labor, real labor, etc.  As a new mom to 3, I needed some sleep already!  I know the older two were probably coming to our room because I hadn't been home in so long and didn't have the words to express their concern but needed to see that we were all there together in our home.  But I was one tired mama.  I remember crying at night thinking I was never going to feel sane again.

Don't think negative of me, but it got to the point where I pretended to not hear them when they came to my side of the bed.  Of course I heard my newborn and attended to his needs, but the other two were on their own!

What this did, unintentionally, was send my kids to Jason's side of the bed.  Every time.  Sadly, for him, they still go to his side of the bed and they are now 13 (almost), 10 and 6.  He also lets them get in our bed; I do not.  They learned that trick real fast!  The rule still applies - this is my half of the bed, that is yours.  You allowed said child to get in bed with you, the two of you can share your space.

I sound terrible, I know.  But my sleep is important to me and is also very important to the well-being of my children.  They don't want a mama whose sleep has been shafted; it just wouldn't be a pretty day!

This background leads me to tell you this.....

Last night I feel Jason leap out of bed.  He didn't say anything, just jumped out of bed and left the room.  I did ponder what exactly made him get out of bed in the middle of the night so quickly - I didn't hear the smoke detectors go off, I didn't hear children in our room, doorbell didn't ring, no phone calls, Oakley was still sleeping.  But nothing made me curious enough to get out of bed.  A bit later Jason must have come back in the room and he told me....

.... Colton had thrown up.  WHAT?  How, as this child's mother, had I not known he was sick?  Why didn't my baby come and get me?  My Colton was probably scared as he threw up all over the bathroom walls and cabinets, probably asking for his Mommy.  Why didn't Jason come and get me?  I could have at leats helped clean up.  Something!

I thought about all of this while lieing in bed, then came to the realization that my children have learned to seek out their daddy in the middle of the night.  This isn't a bad thing!  I will deal with lots of vomit today, surely Jason can handle the night-time spew session.  Right?

I've trained them all well and am SO proud of myself!  Jason's a night owl AND a morning person, this is the perfect task for him!  I need my sleep and this allows me to get the sleep this mama needs.  Let's just call it back-sleep from all those sleepless nights of nursing infants, the nights I spent sitting upright in a rocking chair hoping for an ounce of sleep when my babies were sick, the nights of scrambling to their rooms in the middle of the night when someone cried out on their sleep.  Let us not forget the ear infections, the bleeding nipples and pumping, RSV, middle of the night asthma attacks, the bumped heads and checking to make sure they were alive and especially the stomach bugs that I had surely gotten from my children. 

I always had the theory that it was pointless for BOTH parents to be up at night.  Why wake Jason when it was time for a baby to nurse?  What was he going to do?  He slept, I tended to the babies.  That's how we operated.

My love, you have proven yourself to be an INCREDIBLE father, and I proudly pass the the night-time torch to you.  Do not fear, I am not actually sleeping while you are tending to the children.  I lie awake thinking of how proud I am of you.  At one time, you didn't handle vomit very well.  Last night, you were a CHAMP!  You took Colton's temperature, cleaned up vomit from walls, counters, cabnets and drawers, calmed an upset child and put him back to sleep!! YOU ROCK!

Thank you for crawling back in bed to tell me, "Colton probably shouldn't be going to VBS tomorrow."  I was wondering what to do when my baby has been throwing up?!  I promise to check his temperature, love on him, and give him any medicine as he may need.  As an added bonus, I'll even do his vomit laundry.  If you'd like, I can even call you with regular updates!

I'm logging off for now.  Very soon, I will hear the cries and whimpers of my youngest child.  I can see a day of snuggles in my future :)

Thank you Jason for all your help, I LOVE YOU!

Happy 10th Birthday Courtnie

This could officially be one of THE best birthday parties EVER! 

To give some background on my opinion of birthday parties - I don't care to give them.  They are money sucking, time consuming, very exhausting, feel-like-I-have-to events of the year... times three. I plan them at the very last minute, send invitations via email (don't hate, I haven't resorted to text invites yet), and make a homemade cake.  I might buy birthday type paper goods but never any party favors. 

Yep, I'm THAT mom.

I dread them.  But alas, I always feel guilty and plan that impromptu birthday party.  This year for Courtnie we swam at our neighborhood community pool.  We swam until well past dark, came home to a cookie cake (picked out and purchased just hours before, which means FRESH), then shooed the girls upstairs for some quality girl time making flip flops.  This event lasted for hours; I couldn't have been more thrilled and the girls LOVED it.  They passed out, woke up to some donuts and home they went.

Seriously.... best birthday party ever!  I added the cost in my head and came up with an estimated $60.  What exactly did I spend money on for this event?  Cookie cake, cups and plates, drinks, flip flops, a movie, flip flops, donuts and a balloon.  I splurged on a balloon and didn't even get a picture of it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY sweet girl, I LOVE YOU!

Courtnie's Baptism

Our precious Courtnie Shea accepted Christ into her life fully believe in the Bible, Jesus' birth, life and death for her sins.  She asked what baptism meant, why we are called to be baptised and asked specifically for our pastor to baptise her.  She was VERY excited.  Of course, Jason and I couldn't be anymore pleased with her choices.  June 4, 2011 will forever be a special day for her. 

Congratulations Courtnie for make THE most important decision of your life. You will forever have a place in heaven with your God.

A Peaceful Kind of Quiet

This past holiday weekend, Jason and I had the luxury of spending 4 days without children.  I'm pretty sure that's the absolute longest time we've ever had alone aside from our honeymoon.  We didn't get a hotel room and we didn't plan fun and eventful outings.  We stayed home, slept in, ate in bed, watched tv shows WE wanted to watch, took naps, stayed up late watching movies that weren't rated G and pretty much nothing else :)

It was definitely much needed time with each other.  Many times of quiet, but not uncomfortable quiet, a peaceful kind of quiet.  I'm not sure why people warn us about always having something to talk about.  I think silence is golden!  We never, EVER hear that anymore and we don't have to talk to keep things alive.  Our eyes, our smiles, ours hands and our hearts speak for themselves.  I already know what he's thinking and he is the same with me.  Lots of times in the midst of silence, we will both begin to talk about the very same thing not ever having known what was on each others' minds.  This always gets us laughing; we do it all the time!!

Sure, I missed my children.  I wanted to call them and hear their voices, make sure they weren't bickering (and in doing so embarrassing me), to see if they were eating healthy, to make sure they applied sunscreen, and brushed their teeth.  Lucky for them, where they are has limited cell service so we were only able to talk once a day.  I missed the lights on all over the house letting me know they were home safe and sound.  I missed the laughter, seeing them play together, and I even missed running them around town and seeing their enthusiasm for a fun outing.

They come home later tonight.  When things return back to normal within minutes of them walking through the door, I promise to cherish the times they bicker with each other, smile at the grunting or objections to chores, and ignore the sighs when I send them to their own rooms for the night.  For tonight, I will just enjoy having them back home. 

For tomorrow begins a new day, the reprogramming begins at dawn.  When children are with their grandparents, they follow a different set of rules than at home.  I will spend the next 2 days or so drilling the Gautreaux Rules in their sweet heads and the discipline gets more serious for awhile.

It was worth it all.  I absolutely LOVED the time I had with Jason this weekend. 

THANK YOU to my aunt and uncle and my mom for allowing this weekend for us.  I know they had so much fun with you and can't wait to hear their stories.  I do hope someone took pictures for us!  We love you all and appreciate you!

I *heart* NKOTB!

I went to the NKOTBSB concert this past June and what FUN it was!!  I went with my childhood friend Kaci; we've been friends for over 22 years now.  If that doesn't make you feel old....

Breanne ended up getting a free ticket just seconds before I was walking out the door and joined us. She never actually sat in her seat but with us where some people never showed up. Woohoo!

NKOTBSB even represented wearing MAVS jerseys!  How awesome is that?!?!

Gone Fishin'

The neighborhood boys have spent many nights and morning fishing in the neighborhood pond.  They would go out after dinner but most times they woke up before dawn.  They knock on each others' windows and all meet at the pond. [so cute]

On this particular day, it was a fisherman's dream.  One of Cameron's friends caught the ginormous fish in the picture below.  Just as the line was snapping, Cameron grabbed the catfish by the mouth and pulled him up.  He said he didn't think about it, just reacted.  After weighing the fish, they were shocked to see it weighed 12.5 lbs.  On this trip in particular, they caught two bass and two catfish.  They put them all in an ice chest of ice and Dad had the privilege of cleaning them when he got home from work. 

We've decided to have a cookout at the end of the summer and the boys can eat their fish!

Legoland, Grapevine

The kids and I took a trip out to Legoland. Here are a few pics I was able to snap. It was super crowded and all 3 kids were going in different directions so I didn't get many.

Here is my personal review of Legoland.... We waited in line for over an hour just to purchase tickets.  There was a second line that seemed to move somewhat faster for those who bought tickets online.  I'm cheap and must use a coupon for everything and ended up paying that price for the wait time.  After you get your ticket, you stand in this holding area.  After that you go into a room with a few lego wall toys and wait some more.  After this room, your group is walked into another area where they do a mini skit and pass out a souvenir lego to every child.  Next stop... the Kingdom Quest ride.  All the kids thought this was fun, complete with laser guns and many, many targets to shoot.  Although the ride was shorter than the line for the ride (which you HAVE to stand in to get through and into Legoland), the kids enjoyed it.

Once you get through this first ride, you enter Legoland at your own risk.  The crowding of the area was terrible.  I counted heads no less than every 2-3 minutes.  My kids are nowhere near the same age or level of interest so of course they separated.  We did tour the Miniland of Dallas, all made from legos.  I liked this!  We would have been even more interested if it were bigger; it was a quick walk through for sure.

Colton and Cameron really enjoyed the Lego Racer area.  They made lego model cars, tested them in a testing area and then raced them down this ramp.  I'm pretty sure the boys stayed in this area most of the time.  They really enjoyed this and I agree, this was a very neat idea!

Courtnie headed straight for the Princess Parlor, which we were both disappointed in.  It consisted of a karaoke stage and 3 standing lego tables with girly colored legos to build things with.  That's it.  She roamed around and roamed back out.  Although they did have this very cool guitar on the stage made of legos!

There was also a play zone for toddlers and another play zone for the older kids.  I didn't know socks were required so we weren't able to participate :(  There was another ride, Merlin's Apprentice, that was neat.  All the kids enjoyed this!!

And that was that.  To give my full opinion - I'm glad we went and experienced Legoland.  If I had paid full price, I'd have been very unhappy.  It was very, very crowded which limited the time you could spend in the areas and as a mom it was quite stressful to try and keep tabs on my own children when 100 more were running around.  We spent more time waiting in lines than we did actually enjoying Legoland.  I recommend going for the experience, but DO NOT pay full price :)

Life with Boys

I always find random stuff around my house.  And these things aren't just accidentally left there!  It's almost as if they were strategically placed as decor, like it's there new place of rest.  Rather than continue to get irritated, I figured I'd start documenting my boys' efforts at decorating MY home.

Here we have the kitchen table centerpiece, thank you Cameron.



And here in the chest of dog toys, you will find Colton's "treasure box inside Mommy's treasure box".

This is Jason's ball that the tball team signed.  My guess would be Colton's efforts??  Surely it wasn't Jason....

This pic is hard to see, if you can see it at all.  But right in the middle of the wall, in MY room, is a bb pellet.  That's right, someone named Cameron had an airsoft and BB war IN MY HOUSE, IN  MY ROOM!  Yeah, they knew I was not happy. 

This is Colton's bow and arrow, made from Mom's hangers.  Do you know how many hangers I have thrown away because I thought he was tanking on his clothes to get them down?  I probably could've saved myself some hangers had I just let him keep the first few.  You can also find this "toy" hanging on the bookcase door knobs in the living area.

Itchy, Itchy

This past Saturday we were up at the preschool getting started on the new playground.  At some point I must have sat down in a bed of chiggers.  I woke up Sunday morning covered in spots!  At first Jason flipped and stripped the bed thinking we had bed bugs.  I knew this wasn't the case because I wash the linens often and we have a matress cover.  After determining they were officially chiggers, I began to cry.  I had scratch all.night.long.  They hurt so bad!  This is my back and only what you CAN see.  They are all over my stomach, chest, butt, lady area and the tops of my legs.  Some spots are just mutlitple chigger bites.

Of course I did all the recommended home treatments - took a bleach bath water, put Chigger medicine on, put anti-scratch cortizone cream on.  You name a home remedy, I've tried it!  Upon further investigation, none of that works.  I also learned that there are not live chigger bugs in my body.  Such a nasty myth!!  All I can do is ride it out which can take weeks.  I'm on day 3 of this and am miserable.  Almost nothing works for the itching except Benadryl which is not ideal to take when your kids are home.  That stuff knocks me out cold.

A lesson learned - spray bug spray EVERYWHERE!  My torso area is the only place I didn't spray.  I just never thought to lift up my shirts and spray underneath :(

Really?

If this is any indication of our summer, starting next week, go ahead and ignore my insanity.  I will have been banging my head on the wall wondering what I've done wrong.  It's like a flashback to when Colton was 2, except those fits were worse and lasted for 3 more hours.  Try that 4 times a day!

This particular fit started while Colton was unloading the dishwasher and Courtnie asked to use his watercolors he brought home from school today.  I guess this wasn't acceptable to him, who knew?  He was throwing this fit for about 5 minutes before I started recording and it lasted another 10 or so after I left.  When he was done, he got up, walked out, got himself something to drink and went to play outside.   I need to learn how to get over his fits as fast as he does!  Maybe I could learn something from this afterall?!

PS - If you have 1 or even 2 children, do not judge me or him.  I believe every parent should be blessed with a child who is difficult, head strong and unwilling to take no for an answer.  Only then will you truly learn from your children the meaning of humble, acceptance, forgiveness and unconditional love.




ETA: He told Jason, "I messed up on my paper and didn't want to get another piece and waste Mommy's paper."  After a long discussion, we've all come to an agreement that it's okay to mess up and not okay to throw a fit.  Thinking maybe the lack of structure in class today has messed him up a bit.